Welcome to Part I of Edition No. 60 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
Contents
Tip: Uncover Competitor Weaknesses
Analysis: A 1-Minute, 42-Second Survey
Tip: Leveraging Bard to Find Competitor SEO Vulnerabilities
Bard – Google’s ChatGPT equivalent – can be a great SEO tool…if you know what to ask.
After all, what better place to go for advice on how to rank on Google than its in-house AI chatbot?
Initiate a Session with Google Bard:
Launch Google Bard and start a new session with your Google account.
Input Competitor's URL:
Type “Analyze [competitor URL] from an SEO perspective. They're a competitor, and I want to know where we can improve in relation to them” to prompt Bard to analyze the content of the specified URL.
For our example, I chose the Guardian.
Review Analysis:
Review the analysis provided by Bard. I was provided three sections:
Where The Guardian does well in SEO
Where The Guardian could improve in SEO
Where I, as a “competitor,” should focus my SEO strategy to compete with The Guardian
Ask Follow-Up Questions:
I found the initial recommendations to be rather vanilla, so I zeroed in:
“What about if I want to outrank The Guardian in coverage of the "U.S. economy"?”The answers were more actionable:
Go Deeper:
I then asked “Can you... recommend a list of high-quality sources for information on the U.S. economy? recommend a list of experts on the U.S. economy and interview them for your content? Especially those who might be more likely to respond?”
I got some great responses:
Get Specific:
These tips are great, but what if I want to know specific areas a competitor is vulnerable, and I want real data to back it up?
First I asked: “What are some keywords for which the Guardian has a lot of content but doesn't rank well?”
Then I followed up with: “Which SEO tools did you use? And what are their average rankings for each of those terms?”
I double-checked the info for a couple terms on Semrush, and while Bard wasn’t spot-on, it wasn’t far off, either. (This makes sense since rankings can change daily.)
Apply Insights:
Utilize the insights provided by Bard to refine your own content strategy and go after your competitors where they’re most vulnerable.
This is just one example how you could use Bard to get some free, reliable SEO advice.
If SEO is a weak point, this would be a great way to learn on a case-by-case basis.
If you’re an expert, perhaps this will help spark some ideas more than it will remake your entire strategy.
Did you find this tip useful? Share it to help spread the word.
Analysis: A 1-Minute, 42-Second Survey
Instead of providing an analysis this week, I’m asking for your help collecting data.
The Associated Press invited me onto a webinar panel discussing AI and its affect on search and social media.
I created this newsroom survey, from which I’ll draw the data for a study featured on the webinar.
I just filled out the survey myself, and skipping the optional final question, it took 1 minute and 42 seconds!
All responses are confidential
No individual answers will be shared with anyone, including AP and other panelists
I will aggregate data before sharing it
So if you would, please:
Fill out the survey
Here’s a video from a previous webinar I did in collaboration with the AP:
I self-edit this newsletter, so please don’t be shy about emailing me if you spot a mistake.
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